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PRESENTED 111 



Ctje Concept purpose 



A PHILOSOPHICAL THESIS 



by the 



REV. ORROK COLLOQUE, Ph.D. 



LIMITED EDITION 



NEW YORK 

diatom §>♦ dBtot^am, ^ublt^et: 

Fourth Ave. and Twenty-Second St. 
1904 






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Accepted in partial fulfillment of the 
requirements for the Degree of Doctor 
of Philosophy, by the Graduate School 
of New York University, in 190 A- 



CONTENTS 

PART I 

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL GROUND 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. Purpose and the Volitional Activity ..... 3 

II. Definition 15 

III. The Purposes of Men 20 



PART II 

THE COSMOLOGICAL APPLICATION 

IV. On Method 27 

V. The Purposes of Beasts 30 

VI. Purpose in Inorganic Nature 36 

VII. The Purpose of Organic Nature 49 

Bibliography 56 



PART I 

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL GROUND 



THE CONCEPT PURPOSE 



CHAPTER I 

PURPOSE AND THE VOLITIONAL ACTIVITY 

In the unity of consciousness, we find the intel- 
lectual side of life and the volitional side of life very 
closely bound up together. We never find in expe- 
rience either the intellectual or the volitional elements 
independent and alone. In psychology we find neu- 
roses and psychoses inevitably linked together; and if 
we examine ideas, and try to determine their nature, 
we again find the intellectual and the volitional closely 
intertwined. Both are united in a single conscious- 
ness. According to the philosophy of Locke, ideas are 
the objects of thought. Locke's definitions of " Idea " 
are as follows: An idea is "whatsoever is the object 
of the understanding, when a man thinks" . . . "what- 
ever it is which the mind can be employed about in 
thinking." Ideas are the material with which the mind 
works. They are obtained wholly from experience. 
They come into the mind as the results, the effects, 
produced through the means of sensation. These ideas, 
coming from and given through sensation, are again 
the objects of the operations of the Mind, which, as 
an independent and active agent, unites and combines 

3 



THE CONCEPT PURPOSE 

these ideas from sensation, and hence there comes to 
be a second class of ideas — the ideas from Reflection. 
Knowledge arises from both these sources, which to- 
gether form experience. Hence all our knowledge is 
about ideas, and ideas only are known by the mind. 

But this position, inasmuch as it does not cover all the 
facts, is unsatisfactory. In that reflection is an active 
process of the mind, acting upon the ideas of perception 
and producing other ideas; the ideas show evidences of 
an activity of the mind which has not yet been taken 
into consideration. The activity of the mind is a fun- 
damental thought with Kant. The problem between 
Nominalism and Conceptualism does not exist for him. 
The mind cannot think perceptions directly, imme- 
diately. No sooner are percepts received than they are 
classed under concepts, and must be thought through 
concepts. But the mind can think concepts directly, 
without the intervention of any further idea. The 
reason transforms and synthesizes ideas, in accordance 
with the forms and categories, because it is the very 
nature and constitution of the mind to do this very 
thing. An a priori philosophy goes beyond the given, 
and transcends experience. 

There is no possibility of an idea that is purely in- 
tellectual, and has no other aspect. Every idea is as 
much a volitional process, or rather gives evidence of 
a distinct volitional activity, as it is an intellectual 
datum. As the volitional character and the intellectual 
character are both to be found displayed in ideas, we 
know them to be purposive, id est, they express or give 
evidence of a purpose. This is embodied in, or ex- 
pressed by, the idea and is a principle characteristic of 

4 



PURPOSE AND VOLITIONAL ACTIVITY 

an idea. It is in the ideas we find evidences of pur- 
poses which have been acting upon them or through 
them, altering their character, making of diverse ideas 
homogeneous units, and giving them the character of 
purposive ideas. Purposes are not the product of 
ideas, neither are ideas the product of purposes. But 
the sources of the purposes must be sought not in pre- 
cepts or concepts, but by reference to the Will. 

This attitude is opposed to that of Royce, when he 
says, " Ideas first voluntarily bind themselves to a 
given task — the internal purpose is selective — the idea 
learns to develop its internal meaning so as to assign 
to itself a specific purpose — the idea selects its object 
— the idea is selective. It seeks its own. It attends 
as itself has chosen. It desires in its own way — the 
idea's own conscious purpose or will," 1 et al. This 
seems to mean that each idea possesses all the charac- 
teristics and powers of a complete and separate human 
mind, possessing the ability to choose, will, plan and 
execute. Such ideas are hypostasized. 

" The will is a kind of causality belonging to living 
beings j, in so far as they are rational," says Kant. 2 If 
a will acted without regard to an intellect, it would be 
blind. But in all our experience, we can never find 
evidence of a blind, an abstract will. "Tendency is 
only the empty form of the will . . . and as every 
empty form is only an abstraction, volition is ex- 
istential or actual only in its relation to the repre- 
sentation of a present or future state. No one can 
really will purely and simply, without willing this or 

1 Royce : The World and the Individual. 

2 Kant : Practical Reason. 

5 



THE CONCEPT PURPOSE 

that. A will that does not will something is nothing. 
It is only by the determination of its content that the 
will acquires the possibility of existence, and this con- 
tent is representation. Thus, then, there is no will 
without representation, as Aristotle had said before: 
opeKTiKov Be ovk dvev <f>avT<xcria<; (De An. Ill, 30). n 
What we know is always and only an intelligent will, 
acting purposively. It is not independent of all in- 
fluence. It can be trained and developed, or it can be 
debased and weakened. It increases in power by its 
activity, and decreases by failure to exert its power. 
It can be guided by ideas — that is, by whatever ideas 
it itself chooses, first to attend to and admit into con- 
sideration, then to permit to exert an influence upon its 
own autonomy, its own self-determination, and thus 
ideas do in a sense determine the will. The voluntary 
course of action pursued by one man differs from that 
of another as greatly as the ideas of one man differ 
from those of another. But yet, while the intellect and 
the will may influence each other, and may be very 
closely united in a single consciousness, it is the will 
that determines the course of action. One is able to 
select by an act of will upon what he will fix his atten- 
tion, what ideas he will entertain. "We do not indeed 
say, our will causes our ideas," though it selects among 
them, "but we do say, our ideas now (imperfectly) em- 
body our will." 2 The will gives the character of pur- 
posiveness, the ability to reveal the purposes which they 
embody. The purpose as thus revealed, is not itself 
active and causal. It defines or determines; but for 

1 Hartmann : Philosophic des Unbewussten. 

2 Royce : The World and the Individual. 

6 



PURPOSE AND VOLITIONAL ACTIVITY 

the explanation, it is necessary to refer to the will 
itself as the cause. 

The philosophy of Fichte may be very far from a 
complete and all-embracing system of metaphysics, and 
especially in the more minute ramifications of the de- 
duction, may be far from finding its verification in ex- 
perience. But the " Wissenschaftslehre " may be con- 
sidered as an analysis of consciousness with respect to 
the point of departure which Fichte adopts. In search- 
ing for the first fundamental principle, recourse must 
be had at once to experience. In every perception, 
there are present both intelligence and its object. 
There can be no subject without an object, nor an ob- 
ject without a subject. The empirical basis must be 
assumed, taken for granted, posited, in order that there 
may be any starting-place at all. This, then, being 
given and granted, abstraction leads us from the em- 
pirical facts of consciousness to that which cannot be 
an object of thought in experience, but which is the 
very ground of the possibility of thought. From a 
proposition universally true of consciousness, we are 
led to that in which the relation between the terms and 
the terms themselves exists, and which is conscious of 
them, the Ego, which really exists, and which is present 
in every possible fact of consciousness, as the unifying 
and relating principle. Above all things, this Ego is 
active; for to relate is an activity, and thinking is active 
and free. 

In his life, Fichte had had abundant opportunity 
to test the power of his will, and he had come to rely 
upon it to such an extent, that he made it the supreme 
principle, to which all else should be subordinated. He 

7 



V 



THE CONCEPT PURPOSE 

has emphasized this aspect of consciousness, that the 
will is causal. 

In order to discover wherein willing lies, we must 
ask each one to examine and analyze his own conscious 
experience. No definitions will make the activities of 
the will plainer, for they are common to all conscious- 
nesses. Yet they cannot be found as pure activities, 
but in their very nature as voluntary, distinguished 
from involuntary reflexes, are always found in relation 
to ideas. Willing is found in acting and doing, enter- 
ing the whole mental life in a far from simple man- 
ner. " The point to which the will is applied is always 
an idea." 1 We discover this activity in our use of ideas, 
or in our realization of ideas in their final fulfilment, 
or satisfaction by union with their " other." 

" What we will is dependent upon what we think." 2 
The point of focus for willing is the idea. We can 
conceive of no willing without some form of ideation 
present, and these ideas must be presented in conscious- 
ness, through perception, experience. "And what we 
think is subordinated to a comprehensive and steadfast 
will." 3 Munsterberg's position, 4 that there is a priority 
of the idea to the volitional activity, would seem to be 
true, if we illustrate it in this manner: Prenatal move- 
ment is not volitional, but instinctive. At birth, the 
sense-impressions of light, etc., rapidly give rise to 
many percepts, which are almost at once combined into 
concepts. Because of the ideas thus arising, there is, 

1 James : Psychology, B. C, Chapter XXIII. 

2 Ibid. 

3 Ladd: Outlines of Descriptive Psychology, Chapter XVII. 
4 Grundzuge der Psychologic 

8 



PURPOSE AND VOLITIONAL ACTIVITY 

first, reflexive movement, to answer the stimuli, but 
soon there is also, on the basis of ideas thus obtained 
the development of volitional activity; and movement 
is excited not only as a reflex, but also as the effect 
of desire, of definite volition. The will is already at 
work almost as soon as there are ideas, and then pur- 
poses are formed and executed. And Berkeley says, 
"A Spirit (Mind) is one simple, undivided, active be- 
ing ... as it perceives ideas it is called the un- 
derstanding, and as it produces or otherwise operates 
about them it is called the Will." " I find I can excite 
ideas in my mind at pleasure, and vary and shift the 
scene as often as I think fit. It is no more than will- 
ing, and straightway this or that idea arises in my 
fancy; and by the same power it is obliterated and 
makes way for another. This making and unmaking 
of ideas doth very properly denominate the mind active. 
Thus much is certain and grounded on experience; but 
when we talk of unthinking agents, or of exciting 
ideas exclusive of Volition, we only amuse ourselves with 
words." " The ideas actually perceived by Sense have 
not a like dependence on my will." 1 But I can open 
my eyes to receive them or not, as I choose. I can ap- 
propriate or exclude the ideas from sensation. And 
this fact, in experience gives evidence of the volitional 
activity. 

The will, then, is causal, and can initiate a new 
causal series. Whether we look for the cause in a boat 
or a book, we return to a primary volitional element. 
The lumber is sawn and bent by the strength of a man 
whose every move is determined by his causal will, or 
1 Berkeley : Principles, §§ 27, 28, and 29. 

9 



THE CONCEPT PURPOSE 

the argument of the book follows a course which has 
been previously determined upon by a will. The pur- 
pose involved in either case is the result of the action 
of the will choosing among the various ideas. The will 
has thus formulated and embodied a purpose, and has 
unified the ideas in this purpose and made them serve 
the end which it has chosen as its goal. It is by our 
own volition that we express our ideas in acts, and we 
say, " I act, or I will. I am determined only by the 
ideas which I have often before chosen as my guides. 
I am responsible for my actions." 1 Thus the Ego, as 
an originating activity, is a cause, an initiating or first 
cause, of which the effects are both mental and physi- 
cal. I choose, and there results in the world a new 
causal series which changes not only the course of my 
own life, but the whole course of the world subse- 
quently. When a crime is committed, not only does 
each one demand, "Who did this? " but society at large 
requires an answer, and places the responsibility upon 
the criminal. It is the result of an act of will, and 
an act implies an agent. The civil law holds the crim- 
inal, and judges him as alone responsible for the act 
which has altered the smooth-flowing course of the river, 
and detrimentally changed the facts and originated a 
new causal series. The historical variations from this 
rule are to be accounted for on the same basis. That 
the Greeks solemnly tried and condemned to exile the 
knife with which a murder was committed was due to 
the fact that the Greeks had a strong tendency to per- 
sonify inanimate objects; and as persons they were re- 
sponsible agents. 

1 Ladd : Outlines of Descriptive Psychology, Chapter XVII. 

10 



PURPOSE AND VOLITIONAL ACTIVITY 

It is immediately in the causal activity of the will 
that we define our examples of purpose first displayed. 
Whenever we define a problem or isolate any question 
for the purpose of inquiry, when we judge of what is 
necessary for the solution of any problem, we imme- 
diately find that it is through the use of the concept 
purpose as a determining factor. In all our thinking 
we find it manifested. We can control our course of 
thinking. We select our ideas. With every conscious 
movement we have interposed between the desire to 
move and the idea, and the movement accomplished, an 
act of willing which is unique. 

As our percepts become in time generalized under 
concepts, so on the basis of our ideas, voluntarily chosen, 
we erect what we call ideals. These ideals we set be- 
fore our minds as goals. They are to be realized, and 
this calls for conscious, voluntary action. In this way 
the will places before the mind an ideal which is yet to 
be fulfilled, and it purposes a fulfilment in the end, the 
reality. Hence we may define an ideal as the expres- 
sion of a purpose as presented before the mind, and a 
real thing is the concrete result, fulfilment, satisfaction, 
embodiment of the ideal in the outer world. It de- 
pends on the character of the ideal whether the object is 
a partial and incomplete or a whole and complete real- 
ization of the ideal. Both the ideal and the real give 
evidence of the presence of both elements of the mind 
- — the intellectual and the volitional. But while it is 
true that the mind can be the source of many new 
causal series, it is also true that free will is not exer- 
cised at the expense of the laws of nature, and cannot 
change the essential conditions of the actual combina- 

11 



THE CONCEPT PURPOSE 

tion; it only shows itself in the very sphere of these 
conditions. It uses the limits set to its activity by the 
laws and the constitution of nature as the steps, the 
means by which it works its own effects. To go 
against these is ruin. Eire may warm or it may de- 
stroy. Men can use fire in their mechanical arts, but 
they cannot stay the burning of a forest. 

In the highest forms of volition we notice, first, a 
choice of ends and the fixing of one before the mind, 
with more or less clearness and persistence. Then the 
desire for its accomplishment must oust and defeat other 
conflicting desires. The selection of the means to be 
used in the accomplishment of the end requires their 
deliberation, and a comparative weighing of values. 
Choice of ideas, of means, is itself of a voluntary char- 
acter. Then deliberation is cut short by the " fiat of 
the will," and the choice is made. The executive voli- 
tion, the will to act, leads directly to the carrying out 
of the purpose. The fact that I have decided, that I 
have chosen, is an ultimate fact of experience. 

After this the execution may be more or less auto- 
matic and involuntary. But even so, it must at least 
be referred to previous will-acts. A man may dress au- 
tomatically, but the child has difficulty in learning how 
to dress. The pianist has learned through many sep- 
arate acts of the will how to control his fingers. His 
accustomed control shows a high form of developed 
will-activity. This is not automatic and involuntary 
in its origin, at least. The resistance of the fingers is 
brought under the will-control so thoroughly that the 
action of the will is directly carried into execution, with- 
out the need of overcoming an inhibition or a physical 

12 



PURPOSE AND VOLITIONAL ACTIVITY 

stiffness, and so the response, because it is easier, is 
called automatic. Again, " the case of the old curate, 
who had become insane and who used to recite with the 
utmost eloquence the exordium of Father Bribaine " in 
a most impressive manner, although he was insane even 
to entire imbecility, is still an example of purpose, al- 
though it is not to be referred to present, but to past 
acts or habits of willing. The conscious and pur- 
posive action by volition was there once, although now 
only the effect may remain. 

All volitions and choices are more or less purpose- 
ful actions. A purpose embraces both means and end. 
A purpose cannot exist apart from or independent of 
a will, to which it may be referred as an effect to a 
cause. Its chief characteristic is that the will is fixed 
steadily upon the end as the plan is executed, and con- 
trols every step of the progression. The degree of 
success is dependent upon the degree of this fixity. 
When applied to an ideal of life or character, which 
appears unitary owing to conscious planning, then a 
man is called " far-sighted." It is " the man of one 
idea," who centres his life in one purpose, that gains 
the highest degree of volitional power. In the con- 
struction of ideals we may set before ourselves ideals 
that not only have never been realized, but which may 
never be attainable. 

" The will is the source, the origin of ideals, and also 
of their realization." 1 In the pursuit of such ideals, 
there is an interesting inhibitive volition that is no less 
a result of purposiveness than is activity, and that is, 
the suppression of all that may tend to interfere with 
1 Dewey : Psychology, Chapter XVIII. 
13 



THE CONCEPT PURPOSE 

the execution of the purpose and the attainment of the 
ideal end. This is the development of the will — in 
self-control, the checking of the causal activity of the 
will, by the very act of the will itself, by which the 
power to will is increased, and the ability to maintain 
the ideal before the mind by voluntary activity is 
strengthened. The only really efficacious cause that 
we can know is our own volitional activity. The only 
purposes that are immediately perceptible to us, are 
our own purposes, formed ideally at first in our minds, 
and later actively carried into effect. We know the 
active force of our own wills. We know the ideal, the 
end, or the plan according to which we act, and that 
the formation of the plan is our own act. This much 
is given us in our own immediate experience — and no 
more. 



14 



CHAPTER II 

DEFINITION 

I sit in the window, looking out over the Sound. 
I have seen and sailed many boats, and I desire to 
have a boat, and to join the fleet yonder. I get a piece 
of paper and a pencil, and I lay down the lines of a 
vessel, and make specifications for the lumber. Then 
I send for the materials with which to work. Putting 
aside all other work and pleasure, I put into effect the 
plan I have conceived and laid out on paper. I have 
chosen the end — the boat, now an ideal, but soon to 
be a real thing — and I have selected the means for its 
fulfilment. In my work I find that many of the means 
that I have selected must be abandoned and new devices 
substituted; yet the end I keep steadfastly before my 
mind. Gradually the work nears completion. The 
effect of days of labor is to be seen. The finishing 
touches assume an exaggerated magnitude. And at 
last she is finished and launched, and the desire and 
the ideas, previously gained from experience, upon 
the basis of which the will acted in forming first the 
plan in the mind and on paper, and later carried them 
into effect, are satisfied, and there is a completed pur- 
pose, which in its fulfilment is a Reality. 

By an analysis of this illustration, which we may 
make to stand as typical of all our purposes, we may 
form a definition of what a Purpose is. There are 

15 



THE CONCEPT PURPOSE 

many parts, means, end, united in one, hence the whole 
is an organism, organum. The formation of a plan 
or purpose in the mind involves the action of the will. 
And then this plan, sustained by the will before the 
mind determines what future volitions are to be in 
order to carry out this plan. ' Volition is regulated, 
harmonized impulse. It involves a double process: 
first, the various impulses must be coordinated with 
each other; secondly, they must all be brought into 
harmonious relations with an end, must be subordi- 
nated to one principle," 1 and must form an organum. 
Consequently, there is a neccessary connection between 
each of the elements and all the others. This is not a 
causal connection. One means does not cause another, 
nor do any or all of the means cause the end. And 
certainly the end is not a cause of the means. It 
cannot be a " causa sui " to cause itself, and so self- 
explanatory. Even the ideal representation of the end 
does not cause either the means or the real end. 
Neither the plan nor the purpose is in any stage causal. 
It is not a " causa finalis." A final cause is used to ex- 
plain. Purpose is not an explanatory concept. It 
only defines, as is the case with the other philosophical 
concepts. It is the will-activity that initiates a new 
causal series. Here is the great confusion of Janet's 
" Finales Causes," that it does not distinguish between 
a Purpose and a final cause. 

Again: Both in the ideal representation of a pur- 
pose before the consciousness, and in the concrete ex- 
ternal realization afterwards attained, there is an iden- 
tity between each means and the end. Thus the end 

1 Dewey : Psychology. 
16 



DEFINITION 

may be considered the sum of all the means which have 
been used to bring it about. " These means, how- 
ever, are not intrinsically distinct from the end. They 
are only proximate ends ; they are the end analyzed into 
its constituent factors. For example, the end of voli- 
tion is the construction of a house. The means are the 
plans, the brick and mortar, the arrangement of these 
by the workmen, etc. It is evident that the end is not 
something intrinsically different from the means; it is 
the means taken as a harmoniously manifested whole. 
The means, on the other hand, are something more than 
precedents to an end. The first means, the plans, are 
only the end in its simplest, most elementary form, and 
the next means are an expansion of this, while the final 
means are identical with the end. " When we look at 
the act as a realized whole, we call it end; when we 
look at it in process of realization, partially made out, 
we call it means. But the action of the intellect is 
requisite to analyze the end, the whole, into its means, 
the component factors." 1 If any means were not iden- 
tical with the end, it would be immediately dropped 
out of consciousness as useless. 

As the means become realized, there is an accumula- 
tion of effects, a cumulative aspect. Time is required, 
first, to form the purpose in the mind and to select the 
means, then to carry out the purpose and bring it to 
a realization. The purpose must be worked out in 
time. From start to finish the purpose-forming proc- 
ess is carried on in this continuum. The whole is pres- 
ent continuously in consciousness. " Volition," which 
forms the purpose in accordance with the ideas present 

1 Dewey : Psychology, Chapter XVIII. 

17 



THE CONCEPT PURPOSE 

in consciousness, " is impulse consciously directed tow- 
ards the attainment of a recognized end . . . which 
is felt as desirable." 1 Throughout the whole there is 
a feeling of the value of the end — that it was worth 
while to go through the labor and privations necessary 
to attain the end. " A volition or act of will involves, 
therefore, over and above the impulse, knowledge and 
feeling. There must be knowledge of the end of ac- 
tion. There must be knowledge of the relations of 
this end to the means by which it is to be attained ; and 
this end must awaken a pleasurable or painful feeling 
in the mind. It must possess an interesting quality, 
or be felt to be in immediate subjective relation to the 
self. The impulses furnish the moving force by which 
the end whose quality is recognized, and whose necessity 
for the happiness of self is felt, is actually brought 
about. It is the energy which furnishes its actual ac- 
complishment, directed along the channels laid down 
by the intellect for the satisfaction of feeling." 2 ' Even 
the feeling of curiosity may be an incentive to the 
mind to exert a purposive activity. In fact, the Feel- 
ings play a very great part in the formation and execu- 
tion of purposes, and are in no wise to be left out of 
account. This is easily seen in the fine arts, where the 
aesthetic feelings play so important a part. Purpose, 
then, may be used in two senses — when it refers to a 
peculiar characteristic of an ideal which it is desired 
to put into execution, when it means " plan," plus the 
striving or desire to make the ideal real, or to a peculiar 
characteristic exhibited by and inherent in the real ac- 

1 Dewey : Psychology, Chapter XVIII. 

2 Ibid. 

18 



DEFINITION 

complishment of the ideal in the completed fact. Then 
the fact is said to be purposive. The boat gives evi- 
dence of purpose, i.e., (as purpose refers to a conscious- 
ness), not only of the activity of physical causes, but 
also of the use of these physical causes (which might 
explain, but could not fully define, the existence of the 
boat), by an active mind. 

In our definition, we have used a number of other 
concepts which are wrapped up and involved inextri- 
cably with the concept purpose. Among them, the 
most noticeable are these: 

The Individual. The active agent, the planks, the 
tools, the various means employed, the end realized, the 
boat, are each and all individuals, and are as such to 
be defined. 

The Continuum. The plan is formed in the con- 
tinuum consciousness and executed in time and space 
continua. 

Potentiality. The plan must be feasible, possible, 
else it would not be formed. If a device is found im- 
possible, it is exchanged for a plan that can come within 
the concept of potentiality. 

Chance. As we discuss this concept later, we 
merely mention it here. 



19 



CHAPTER III 

THE PURPOSES OF MEN 

We have now seen what sort of a thing purpose 
is in the immediate consciousness, in the Ego, in me. 
How can I extend the concept to a wider sphere? I 
have immediate experience of it in my own conscious- 
ness, and I reason from the causal will and my ideas, 
to the plan and its execution in the purpose, showing 
volitional activity. How do I know of others' pur- 
poses? 

The only immediate object presented to us is our- 
selves, — our own minds, as they receive passively, or 
as they are active or efficacious. We know only a 
single individual. We cannot proceed as anatomists, 
and draw our conclusions from having dissected a great 
number of individuals from the species we are study- 
ing. But we can study only the one single individual, 
and from the conclusions thus derived, we must reason 
concerning other individuals of the same sort. We 
can do no more than " judge others by ourselves," and 
" ab uno disce omnes." But this is sufficient. Al- 
though other men differ very greatly as being different 
individuals, not precisely like ourselves, yet we may and 
we must conclude from the likeness of qualities that 
we see to the likeness of qualities that are hidden. 
" Such is the nature of Spirit, or that which acts, that 
it cannot be of itself perceived, but only by the effects 

20 



THE PURPOSES OF MEN 

which it produceth." 1 This process is an induction, 
based on analogical reasoning. We believe in the in- 
telligence of our fellow-men, but that belief is so deep- 
seated in our own minds that it amounts to certitude. 
We are as certain here as we are of anything that is 
given us, either in sensation or reflection. Indeed, so 
far as I know, no man has ever questioned the intelli- 
gence of other men. The greatest doubters have held 
this belief very strongly, as is shown by the fact that 
they have published their books for the perusal of 
others. The method we have adopted for our proce- 
dure is justified on this ground, because in one sense it 
is the " only possible " way. In whatever we do, in 
whatever we think, there is always the " personal ele- 
ment." We can never work otherwise. There is al- 
ways present the Subjective Ego, with all its peculiar 
characteristics, desires, choices, preferences; and it col- 
ors the whole work of every man. There is not a 
philosopher who has not put upon his work the stamp 
of his own character, mirrored his own face in it, 
and thereby missed the " necessarily and universally 
valid " philosophy that will serve as well for one man 
as for another. There has never been an independent 
and absolute system made by man. Whatever is uni- 
versally valid finds its ground in the source to which 
the very nature and constitution of man himself must 
be referred. The reason why we make this induction 
— that other men have minds like our own — is because 
we see in their actions and words evidences of that same 
activity of the will, planning and executing, as we dis- 
cover or experience in our own. Our experience of 

1 Berkeley : Principles, § 27. 
21 



THE CONCEPT PURPOSE 

other men leads us to see purpose " in their actions." 
These actions we refer to the causal activity of a pur- 
posive will like our own. 

Let us take our former illustration of the boat. 
But we shall find it necessary to turn it around, end 
for end. We see the boat-builder engaged over his 
work, selecting the proper tools, cutting, choosing and 
trimming the timbers, making fast the frames, form- 
ing the hull of a boat. We never for a moment 
imagine that here there is at work a blind necessity, or 
that the work is a result of accident. Here are effects 
giving evidence that all through the work there is run- 
ning the characteristic of purposiveness, that the builder 
is realizing a purpose which he has in his mind, and 
that this purpose involves, as its ground, necessarily, a 
will and a mind. It is because of the element of Pur- 
pose that we can thus reason, and can thus affirm the 
intelligence of other men as an indisputably certain 
truth. We perform the same process of reasoning if, 
night after night, when the builder is gone home, we 
drop into the shop, and see the boat nearing completion, 
the purpose gradually reaching its fulfilment in reality. 
Although we do not see the workman or the perform- 
ance of the work, we yet know that he who does this 
thing is an intelligent, willing, planning, purpose- 
forming man. The work, too, has all the character- 
istics of Purpose, — of any one of our own purposive 
acts. We see here the union of interdependent parts, 
working themselves out toward a completion in time, 
each means dependent on all the other means, the 
planking on the frames, and the frames on the back- 
bone, and we see these means all adapted for and iden- 

22 



THE PURPOSES OF MEN 

tical with the end. We see the necessary connection 
involved between the parts. We see the cumulative 
growth toward completion, the finished boat, and we 
feel the value of the end, that it will fulfil its function 
and realize the purpose. This gradual, regular, or- 
dered growth indicates that it is the realization of an 
ideal, that back of it all lies the ideal, the plan, toward 
which the work is progressing. We can explain every 
step by means of mechanical laws, every movement by 
gravity, resistance, force, etc.; but all would be mean- 
ingless were it not that in the whole we saw the activ- 
ity of a willing agent, i.e., that the plan and the pur- 
pose which we see in the work were present before a 
consciousness. This alone gives a meaning to the work. 
We can explain (after a fashion) by the mechanical 
causes, but we need more. We need, in order to de- 
fine, the concept of Purpose, and the presence thereby 
involved of a consciousness other than our own. To 
quote again from Berkeley: " From the effects I see 
produced, I conclude there are actions; and because ac- 
tions, volitions, and because there are volitions, there 
must be a will. . . . But will and understanding 
constitute in the strictest sense a mind or spirit." 1 
' We cannot know the existence of other spirits " (men) . 
The motions of their bodies are perceptible. Their 
conscious life or personality is necessarily invisible. 
" We cannot know the existence of other spirits, other- 
wise than by their operations or the ideas by them 
excited in us." These " inform me there are cer- 
tain particular agents, like myself, which accompany 
them and concur in their production. Hence the knowl- 
1 Berkeley : Third Dialogue between Hylas and Philonous. 

23 



THE CONCEPT PURPOSE 

edge I have of other spirits is not immediate, as is the 
knowledge of my ideas; but depending on the inter- 
vention of our ideas (or acts) by me referred to agents 
or spirits distinct from myself, as effects or concomitant 
signs." 1 This is a pure inference. We have percep- 
tion in our minds. We can infer that there are per- 
ceptions which are in other minds. We can infer minds, 
or minds plus perceptions, but never perceptions or ex- 
periences alone, apart from a mind. But having made 
the induction from what we can observe to what we 
must conclude to be the ground for our observations, 
we determine that other men can will and can purpose. 
And this conclusion gives interest and meaning to all 
their work. 

To what an extent does the Concept of Purpose 
enter into the history of men and their actions? It 
gives content to history and lends interest to the lives 
of other men and to their deeds. It is the men of ac- 
tivity, of volitional energy, of strong purposiveness, 
who have moulded the lives of nations. And even in 
a much humbler sense, in the Drama, the concept Pur- 
pose is seen to be the one essential, the very point of 
focus. The history of dramatic activity shows that the 
energy has been greatest in the writing of plays just 
after times of struggle. France and Germany give 
the best examples. The life of the drama is in strug- 
gle, the clash of will against will, in the formation and 
execution of a Purpose that is all-absorbing. The in- 
terest of a drama lies in the plot. 

Berkeley: Principles, § 145. 



24 



PART II 

THE COSMOLOGICAL 
APPLICATION 



CHAPTER IV 

ON METHOD 

We have found Purpose manifested in our own 
personal and voluntary experience. We have also es- 
tablished its existence in other men. We shall now 
continue by descending the scale of life, seeking evi- 
dences of purposiveness in the lower orders. As we 
descend, we shall find the evidences of individual pur- 
posiveness gradually decreasing and the evidences for 
a mechanical explanation gradually increasing, until we 
find ourselves involved in the " riddle of the universe." 
We should, I thoroughly believe, remain entangled in 
this mesh, if we contented ourselves with this procedure 
alone — that is, the descent of the scale — and did not 
seek the evidences of purposiveness, as referring to and 
emanating from a higher source. We must also ascend 
again to a higher plane, even superior to the purposes 
of man, seeking the ground and source, the intelligent 
and willing mind, to which the purposes which we dis- 
cover can and must be referred, if we are to escape 
from this " riddle of the universe," and have a philo- 
sophical system that is logical and explicable. 

Our statements with regard to man's will regard it 
as free. If it were not, we could not look to man for 
the formation and execution of plans and the realiza- 
tion of ideals, but would be compelled to look elsewhere 
for a definition and an explanation of Purpose, or to 

27 



THE CONCEPT PURPOSE 

deny its existence altogether. But man, capable as he 
is, is not absolutely free to will and to perform whatever 
his imagination may conceive. He is not omnipotent. 
He is bound and conditioned in many ways. He can- 
not choose what ideas he is to receive through sensation 
and experience. He meets life as it comes to him, and 
must make the best of it. He must act in accord- 
ance with the laws of nature, which are set as bounds, 
against which he may struggle in vain, only to be over- 
thrown at the last. But these same bounds he can use, 
and he does use them in carrying out his purposes. In 
his boat -building he works in accordance with the laws 
of gravity and resistance, with the mechanical laws, and 
with the natural properties of the materials with which 
he works. He acts beyond himself on nature and on 
bodies, and brings into the universe new and unending 
causal series. Things that would otherwise obey the 
laws of nature he turns into new courses. He hews 
down the trees and cuts them to his patterns, and works 
them into his boat, all compatible with the laws of 
gravity and mechanics, and yet in every instance pre- 
determined by the mind. And yet he must always act 
under and in agreement with this higher law which is 
over him and limits him. So we have not begun at 
the top. We must go higher as well as deeper. We 
must determine what this other something is. For as 
we descend the scale we find that the purposiveness of 
the individuals which we may consider is steadily de- 
creasing. There is less and less intelligence, less voli- 
tional activity, less self-determination, less purposive- 
ness that is merely personal and to be referred to the 
individual jn question — id est,, internal. 

28 



ON METHOD 

It is not now generally thought that there are such 
great gaps and leaps in nature as Descartes' paradox 
of animal machines and Kant's animal automata seem 
to imply. The beasts have not the capacity to reason 
and to execute plans that man has — the trees are not 
able to cope with the beasts, and a stone is unchanged 
by any growth, life or activity within it. Each is pow- 
erless before the activity of the higher order, and the 
stone is entirely under the dominion of laws and pur- 
poses which are wholly outside of its own individual 
self, and which must consequently be referred to some- 
thing entirely other and different from itself. And at 
the same time there is, as we descend the scale, the stead- 
ily increasing evidences of something acting purpos- 
ively, which supplies the evidences of purposes in a 
no less striking way than they appear in man's activity. 
Man has a will of his own, and can act independently 
of all else within the limits of his own possibilities. 
The stone has no self-determination. In man, pur- 
poses are first to be referred to his own free will. In 
the stone, the evidences of purposiveness are to be 
referred at once and directly to something else outside 
itself — to Nature, that wore it to a smooth pebble; to 
the mart; who fitted it into the wall of the building ; and 
in the end we shall find ourselves obliged to refer both 
the man and the stone, because they are both condi- 
tioned, limited, finite, to a higher and more powerful 
and intelligent purposive mind, to whom they are both 
materials and means. 



29 



CHAPTER V 

THE PURPOSES OF BEASTS 

From the likeness of one man to others, we have 
argued by analogy from our own intelligence to intel- 
ligence in other men. It is only by analogy that we 
can pass from man to the beasts and argue for their 
intelligence. We must proceed by the same method 
— from effects to causes. 

There is a close relationship between men and beasts. 
Consequently either both are automata or both are in- 
telligent. The former is untenable on our previous 
ground. Is there any evidence for the latter? 

There are so many actions in beasts, both domesti- 
cated and wild (the latter are the more certain study in 
this regard, because the domesticated beasts, by imitation 
or by imputation, often acquire the habits and almost 
the ideas of their masters), that are exactly like the 
actions of men, that it is quite necessary to assign them 
to the same sources. The tiger stalks the gazelle and 
pounces upon it unexpectedly. The hunter trails the 
tiger and slays it unsuspecting. The bear or the squir- 
rel, when trapped, after recovering from frantic and 
futile attempts at escape, sits down to think over its 
situation, and, trying first one method and then an- 
other, at last learns the secret of the trap and regains 
its liberty. Having once learned this way of escape, 
it tries it first when again trapped. There is, too, a great 

30 



THE PURPOSES OF BEASTS 

difference in various beasts in this regard. Some are 
stupid and slow of wit. Others are bright, and their 
cunning shows a greater degree of intelligence. The 
beast desires water or to cross a river, and goes about 
the fulfilment of its purpose as deliberately and with 
as great evidence of a well-formed plan as does a man. 
Monkeys learn to cross rivers by forming a living chain. 
When the red squirrels, which had lately migrated into 
the Eastern States from Canada, had propagated in 
great numbers, they began to drive the older inhab- 
itants, the gray squirrels, from their homes. The gray 
squirrels, though larger, were unable to withstand the 
fierce little red squirrels, and found it necessary to mi- 
grate. They moved southwestward in large numbers, 
and reached the Mississippi River. Although they can 
swim fairly well, their strength was unequal to the great 
breadth of the river. As they were driven from be- 
hind, they were compelled to advance. Many met 
death by drowning, but often it was possible to see a 
squirrel dislodging a piece of wood from one shore, and 
either riding upon it or clinging to it, take his chances of 
reaching the other bank. The most remarkable thing 
of all is the fact that the squirrels chose their place of 
crossing, where the current was close to the eastern 
bank, and then swung over to the other shore ; and they 
often selected a time when the wind was in the right 
direction to help them in their passage. 

Those animal characteristics that are so deeply in- 
grained that they are called instincts, are greatly al- 
tered or quite lost by change of locality, climate or 
environment, because the beast learns that the previous 
methods are no longer useful, while other needs must be 

31 



THE CONCEPT PURPOSE 

met, and the readiness and adaptability which many 
animals show argues well for their intelligence. Who 
is there, who has domesticated various sorts of wild 
beasts, who does not say that they have intelligence, 
and form and execute plans? " It is those who know 
them best who have the firmest conviction on this 
point." 1 

To all appearance, the spider's web is as much a 
purpose of the spider as the web of the weaver. The 
squirrel makes his winter store, and man preserves his 
fruits. The beavers build houses and man builds 
homes. Do not the beasts foresee and display purpos- 
iveness as well as man? When they meet unusual or 
prohibitive conditions, do they not show great intelli- 
gence in circumventing them, in finding some new de- 
vice never before tried, to bring about the same re- 
sults, to fulfil the same purposes, or others even better 
adapted to new wants? 

The beasts without doubt act in many instances with 
purpose, and display in their acts every evidence that 
their acts are voluntary, and result from volitions as 
their cause, and that the end for which they are work- 
ing is known and perceived ideally, making their ac- 
tions and the effects of their actions purposive. 

But while a great part of these actions are clearly 
purposive, there are less data here to go by than in the 
case of men. The relative number of acts which dis- 
play purpose is far less, while a new type of activity 
displays itself, which appears truly enough and unde- 
niably in men, but is much more in evidence in the beasts 
— instinct. In this we cannot find the beast planning, 

1 Janet : Final Causes. 
32 



THE PURPOSES OF BEASTS 

purposing, consciously and intelligently, but he is acting 
in a different sort of way — indubitably no less pur- 
posively; but now the purposes cannot so easily be re- 
ferred to the conscious and voluntary activity of the 
beast himself. This is natural, for the degree of con- 
sciousness and volitional power, no less than difference 
in the matter of the reason, is marking the distinction 
between men and beasts by which the former hold 
their superior place in the universe. We can there- 
fore refer the purposes which we may find in instinct- 
ive actions no longer to the consciousness of the indi- 
vidual beast — internal purposiveness — but must seek 
another ground, another consciousness, before which the 
purposes are, and by whose volitional activity they are, 
carried into effect. 

But before examining this subject, instinct, let us 
look for a moment at the life of the flora. Here we 
have, so far as we are able to determine, none of the 
characteristics of the mind. There is life, but no con- 
sciousness, volitional activity and purposiveness. This 
seems to stop with the nervous system. We see some 
characteristics that appear like inner and consciously 
purposive and volitional actions — the long journey of 
a young sprout under a stone toward the light, the 
turning of a plant toward the sun, the unaccustomed 
and painful efforts of the cultivated plants to propa- 
gate at strange seasons when they have been thwarted 
in their first attempt — these look almost as if intended 
on the part of the plant. Yet it may be no more than 
that which is a common property of all life — the "will 
to live," or the working out of another will through 
and in them. We cannot determine any internal pur- 

a3 



THE CONCEPT PURPOSE 

posiveness. And as we are able to discover in the ores, 
the stones, the water, the air, no life at all, we laugh 
to scorn those imaginative philosophers who have tried 
to establish the poetic doctrine of philozoism. If there 
is no consciousness in a rock, there is likewise no inter- 
nal purposiveness, as a purpose must be present before 
a consciousness. 

Two methods of explanation have stood opposite 
each other, mutually hostile — teleology and mechanism. 
The former, starting from man, reasons down, apply- 
ing analogies from a higher order to a lower. The lat- 
ter, beginning with matter, argues by analogies to 
higher orders, to living organisms, to rational beings 
even, and, using physical and mechanical explanations, 
even tries to reduce the volitional and reasoning mind 
to the condition of a brain acting by reflexes according 
to the laws of physics. Schopenhauer is strikingly at 
variance with his usual and more prominent system of 
idealism, by sudden reversions that make mind and 
brain identical terms. 

We have shown purposiveness and volitional causa- 
tion to exist in consciousness, but we have not excluded 
but rather included mechanical causation. In the inor- 
ganic sphere we have for the present excluded internal 
conscious volition. As we have brought the one down, 
gradually decreasing and disappearing, so as we go up 
by the other road we shall see the mechanical causation 
more and more overcome, overruled, superseded by vo- 
litional activity, which represents in a sense a higher 
force. 

Are we to consider that physical laws and mechan- 
ical operations explain themselves, or are they to be 

34 



THE PURPOSES OF BEASTS 

considered valid only as in reference to some ulterior 
ground? Do they exclude purposes in inorganic na- 
ture, or can we find that in the very order and con- 
stitution of the mechanical laws themselves there is 
purpose? 



35 



CHAPTER VI 

PURPOSE IN INORGANIC NATURE 

There are comparatively few things in nature that 
suggest in their structure direct evidences of purposive- 
ness. It seems possible to explain most things suffi- 
ciently without reference to this concept. But we can 
never be sure that this is not due to our own short- 
sightedness, to our inability to judge from lack of suffi- 
cient data. " We find it impossible to limit anywhere 
the conception of final purpose in its application to 
the concrete facts of reality — anywhere, that is, in a 
logical and principled way. The ignorance of man, 
which is either partial or almost complete in every realm 
of inquiry, limits his ability to recognize the particular 
final purposes served by the concrete facts of his experi- 
ence. The obscurity which hangs like an impenetrable 
cloud over the beginning and the concluding por- 
tions of the present system of things makes it impos- 
sible for him to demonstrate the final aim of the world's 
course. The scale of rising ideas that tower one above 
another until they lose themselves in the heights of 
the loftiest sesthetical and ethical ideals that lie one 
below another until imagination cannot longer conjec- 
ture the ultimate foundations of reality, is too vast for 
his intuition to discern surely or for his calculation to 
measure precisely. But wherever man's knowledge 

36 



PURPOSE IN INORGANIC NATURE 

does go, there does it find the presence indicated of 
formative principles due to ideal ends. In other words, 
the facts of purposiveness seem coextensive with the 
facts of knowledge. All things and all minds in their 
structure, development and relations, give token of 
ideal ends to our cognitive faculties. And without the 
significant influence of this category there is not a 
thing or transaction known that is really and satisfac- 
torily known." * " In the construction of a great build- 
ing or in the carrying out of a plan of campaign, the 
subordinates very generally work in accordance with a 
plan not revealed to them. Their whole activity is gov- 
erned by the relation of means and ends ; but they remain 
in ignorance, for the relation is not objectively revealed 
until the work converges toward completion. To one 
standing in the midst of the work, and especially in its 
raw beginnings, or to one studying the details singly 
and not in their relations, the end may well be missed 
altogether. 

" From the nature of the case, we must be largely in 
this position with regard to the purpose in nature. Our 
own brevity makes it hard to believe in purpose when 
it is slowly realized." 2 We find the purposes of nature 
inscrutable, and are unable to judge as we judge con- 
cerning the purpose manifested in the boat another 
builds, to which we have only an exterior relation. Just 
so a cat would regard a printing-press as a place well 
fitted for hunting and hiding, but nothing further. 
But if we consider purpose as a fact in nature, then we 
are enabled to bring our thought to a systematic com- 

1 Ladd : A Theory of Reality. 

2 Bowne : Theory of Thought and Knowledge. 

37 



THE CONCEPT PURPOSE 

pleteness, and our reasonings are not doomed to end in 
a deadlock. In this there is nothing that is " contrary 
to the laws of reason, logic or analogy." There is no 
reason why the law of cause and effect should not be 
found in every set of phenomena that comes under ob- 
servation, from stones to our own mind. Even thinking 
and willing have some sort of a causal inter-connection. 
Why not find the opposite point of view true, too, that 
purposes are to be found everywhere, that nature is 
purposive? Why should a mechanical explanation try 
to rout a supposed enemy when, if we are in search of 
an explanation, we should entertain both guests under 
the same roof as friends? The mechanical explanation, 
carried to extreme, is absurd. It will deny the intelli- 
gence of other men, and of one's self, and end in com- 
plete speculative collapse. Mechanical causality ends 
by cancelling itself through the impossibility of think- 
ing it in infinite regress, and leaves the insoluble prob- 
lem that is found so clearly stated in Schopenhauer's 
" Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Rea- 
son." Causality must originate in the first member of 
a causal series, and arises from the concept of the Indi- 
vidual, inasmuch as each individual is characterized by 
its degree, and differences of degree result in Causa- 
tion. So, instead of there being no first cause, there 
are many first causes. And volitional causality is the 
one fundamental, basal causality both in men's minds 
and in the evolution of nature ; and mechanical causality 
must be shown to be a form, an aspect, a manifestation 
of volitional causality, and must be thus understood, if 
our thinking is to be order and not chaos. Purpose 
cannot be excluded from mechanical causality " unless 

38 



PURPOSE IN INORGANIC NATURE 

it be shown that the mechanism cannot be viewed as 
founded in or directed by intelligence." * 

On the other hand, teleological explanation, if car- 
ried to excess, is liable to abuse, and is at best impossible 
of sufficient proof in the present state of our knowledge. 
All we wish to attempt at present is to show that the 
constitution of things would lead us to the inference 
that there is, as the explanation and ground of the world, 
a mind which unites intellectual and volitional (pur- 
posive) activities in one intelligence. 

It is not difficult to see the internal purposive nature 
of organic beings, for, as individuals, they exist for 
themselves, to fulfil their proper functions. Self-pres- 
ervation is their first law of life. They may also have a 
value as related to other things, but this is not necessary 
to give them the characteristic of purposiveness. But in 
the case of inorganic beings, we cannot discover any in- 
terior purposiveness or volitional activity at all. Hence, 
we must look at them as they are related to other things. 
And we first look at them as related to living nature. 
Instead of studying single individual objects or species 
now, we must take nature as a whole, and treat it as 
an organism, organum. In other words, there is " the 
respective and reciprocal utility of one and the same 
being for each other, and of all for the whole being." 
And as an organism we may see evidences of purposive- 
ness. First, let us see what indications there are for 
all external purposiveness. We need not here expect 
to find purposes present to the consciousnesses of the 
various things by which and in which the purposes are 
displayed in process of being realized, or already real- 

1 Bowne : Theoiy of Thought and Knowledge. 
39 



THE CONCEPT PURPOSE 

ized. Stones have no consciousness that we are able to 
determine. And this is why we have drawn the distinc- 
tion between internal and external purposiveness. But 
we have defined purpose in our analysis of it as being 
" present before a consciousness." This definition is 
still to hold good, and the sheer force of logic compels 
us to carry with the definition the implications involved 
in this definition of Purpose. 

Therefore, the purposes of both inorganic and or- 
ganic nature must be referred to a thinking and willing 
mind before the consciousness of which the purposive- 
ness is present, and in whose plans the purposes are ad- 
vancing toward a consummation, in reality at least, when 
the ideal shall become the real. It is in this way that 
the universe comes to have an external purposiveness. 

We now find ourselves considerably at variance 
with the position of Kant, 1 who was so engrossed in 
tracing the internal purposiveness that he sacrificed too 
much the external purposes. Our position — the uni- 
verse as an organum — shows internal and external pur- 
poses to be bound up inseparably together. Each unit 
of the great mass exists only as it depends on others, 
yes, even all the others, for its means of support. Each 
thing that we may mention depends upon every other 
thing of its own class, or beneath it ; and the lower orders 
exist not only for themselves and as the support of the 
higher, but are often much benefited by the existence 
of the higher forms. The flora are food for the fauna, 
the fauna in their turn keep in restriction a too exu- 
berant growth. The different varieties keep among 
themselves a wonderful balance, so that one sort of beast 

1 Kant : Critique of Judgment. 
40 



PURPOSE IN INORGANIC NATURE 

does not overrun and destroy all the others. And man 
improves the condition of both, as well as utilizing 
them. 

We often find in this universe, which is arranged 
with all the symmetry of an ordered series, that there 
are accidents or variations that cannot be accounted for. 
But the application of purposes need not deny the ex- 
istence of such. The observation of such exceptions 
seems very often to cast doubt on the whole. But a 
moment's consideration will show why, although some 
things in nature may at first sight appear to be fortui- 
tous, the whole ultimately cannot be so, but is none the 
less the embodiment of purpose. 

Indeed, how do we discover, determine the laws of 
nature? 

The law with which men first concerned themselves 
was social law, which soon crystallized into a set form 
called civil law. How did this arise? Men observed 
the relations that existed among them, their respective 
rights and mutual privileges, and they generalized these 
into social rules, which grew as they were extended to 
a greater number into the civil law. So civil laws are 
the generalizations of the rights and experiences of 
many men. They represent the average of the men to 
whom they apply, not an impractical ideal nor a low 
standard that would induce revolt. 

Do these laws apply to every case that comes under 
their ruling? No. There is many an exception. And 
so there is established the Court of Equity, to make 
right that for which the law was not framed, or for cases 
where the application of the law would be unjust and 
the reversal of it just. And so the civil law is a gen- 

41 



THE CONCEPT PURPOSE 



eralization, a norm, a standard, to which most men de- 
sire to conform, and which is formulated as a means by 
which the few may be compelled to conform. 

Is it otherwise with physical or natural law? Let 
us take two instances: 

According to the law of probability, if a coin is 
tossed into the air, whirling, the chance that it will come 
up heads is even with that of tails. The ratio is 1 : 1. 
If it is flipped up a hundred times, the chances are 
again even, and the probability is that it will come fifty 
times heads, and fifty times tails. If a thousand, the 
ratio is 500 : 500. Such is the law obtained by general- 
ization. How does an experiment show it? There is 
an approximation to this generalization, this even per- 
centage, but there is no necessity that there should be 
an exact conformity. Experiment might lay down 
certain limits outside of which it has never come and 
might never come. But there is always the chance that 
there will not be an exact conformity to law, even when 
running to the highest numbers. The most we can say 
is, that there is an approximation to the law. Here is 
a table showing an actual experiment: 




O lOO 200 300 400 500 600 700 600 900 lOOO 

Tossing a hundred times a day for ten days, a thousand 
tosses, gave heads the first time, then sank to three tails 
in excess of the average at the end of the day. At 
the end of the third day there were nine tails above the 

42 ■ 



PURPOSE IN INORGANIC NATURE 



average 



Then began a steady rise in the number of 
heads, till at the end of the sixth day, there were ten 
more heads than tails. At the end of the tenth day 
there were two more heads than tails in the thousand 
throws. 

The curve that a cannon ball will take when fired 
at an angle of forty-five degrees, the curve of the 
parabola, has been figured out mathematically. But ex- 
periments show a great deal of variation from the line 




mathematically determined. The ball may take a curve 
higher than the law requires, lower, or to either side, 
although the gun remains in exactly the same position 
and at the same angle. 

This has also been tried on a small scale, where for- 
eign influences could be guarded against, with the same 
results. 

The same thing is true regarding a falling body. It 
deviates from the perpendicular, which the law of grav- 
ity requires, to some extent. Of course this is within 
limits. The falling body does not fall sideways, at an 
angle of ninety degrees. But the deviation is sufficient 
to cause a variation from the strict statement of the 
law of gravitation. These laws, based on generaliza- 
tions, are primarily obtained by observations. The gen- 
eralization laid down is a strict, hard and fast law. 

43 



THE CONCEPT PURPOSE 

When put to the test of experience, it is found that in 
almost every case there is exception to a slight degree, 
enough to admit other causes, new causal series, means, 
and diverse ultimate results. In fact, this is one way 
by which many modern philosophers introduce the con- 
cept purpose, basing it on Chance. Because there is 
chance there can enter purposive action, which goes to 
some degree contrary to the laws. But this view is based 
on the assumption that the laws are of themselves active 
and act blindly, mechanically, unguided, and that in the 
sphere where they are operative, there is no possibility 
of purposiveness. It is only by " getting in by a side 
door " that there is to be made a place for purpose. 

But let us turn the picture another way. It is not 
because of these deviations, but in spite of them, that 
purposes are operative. The very fact that a general- 
ization of observations can be made means that nature, 
on the whole, acts conformably to a certain definite di- 
rection. The laws are frequently broken or overcome. 
The growth of a tree overcomes gravitation, the wind 
moves a flying projectile from its path, and man is 
constantly using one force of nature to overcome an- 
other. The deviation from a strict conformity to law 
permits the entrance and activity of another kind of 
cause, i. e., that arising from an outside source, of which 
the best example is the volitional causality. 

The activity of man makes many exceptions to law. 
He wilfully goes contrary to the moral law, and makes 
an exception to law and a deviation in the course of 
events. He alters events in the physical world, thereby 
causing deviation or change in the obedience of things 
to physical laws, as when he erects a mound of stones. 

44 



PURPOSE IN INORGANIC NATURE 

The beavers obstruct the flow of the stream, and heap 
up a dam and a pile of water of great weight. The 
growing tree displaces or splits a rock. All these form 
exceptions to one or other of the physical laws. And 
yet the whole of nature advances in its course of evo- 
lution, fulfilling its purpose, tending toward the realiza- 
tion of its ideal. We here find one purpose overcoming 
the fulfillment of another, and yet the whole is carrying 
out a purpose which unites and blends all the others. 
Actions and reactions without end would never result 
in a purpose were there not a consciousness to which it 
must be referred. 

Take two contiguous moments of time. Given the 
world as it was a moment ago, the last moment of the 
past. Suppose all to depend on chance. There is but 
one chance that at this present moment the world will 
be as it is now. There is but the one chance that it 
will continue from the first to the second moment. And 
these against a countless infinity of chances that it will 
be otherwise. And to be otherwise means what? There 
is but one chance that the world will continue the next 
moment. If it does, then that means what? That 
there are innumerable chances to one that the world 
will not exist the next moment, that it will vanish and 
disappear rather than continue, for to upset its laws 
and destroy its development and reverse its evolution 
means destruction. And there is every chance against 
one for this. But it is the chance that we have found 
to happen, from which we recognize the force of the 
consciousness and of the volition by which the evolution 
and realization of the purpose is maintained and ad- 
vanced. We attribute an intelligence and choice to 

45 



THE CONCEPT PURPOSE 

that mind which sustains all nature in existence. The 
purposiveness that carries forward the evolution and 
growth of the world is the evidence of that great ideal 
which the world is ever tending to realize. 

" Facts of the sort which the theory of evolution 
pursues cannot be known at all otherwise than in their 
relation to some teleological conception. The meaning 
of the entire series of facts, as actually arranged and 
viewed in the light of the ideal ends to be secured, is 
essential to the knowledge of the facts themselves." 1 

Let us return once more to our illustration from 
civil law. The laws alone are dead, inactive, inefficient. 
They have no power to purpose, although they exhibit 
in their construction purposiveness. They imply two 
things — a legislative as their source, and an executive 
as the power which makes them valid and active, which 
puts them in operation. These two things, or parts of 
the one thing, an administrative government, are shown 
by the very structure of the laws themselves. The laws 
of nature are generalizations arising from the observa- 
tion of the relations that exist among the properties of 
the bodies of nature. These again witness in their very 
nature (first, the operation of the mind of man in 
forming these generalizations; then, if, apart from the 
mind of men, they have any validity, as we are forced 
to conclude that they have) the existence back of them, 
in and through them, of a purposive Being who is both 
legislating power and executive force, else the laws 
would be ineffective and no more than unexecuted plans 
that never see the light of reality. 

Thus we conclude that the world is affected by an- 

1 Ladd : A Theory of Reality. 
46 



PURPOSE IN INORGANIC NATURE 

other series of causes other than merely mechanical. It 
has been under the guidance, both outside and inside of 
it, of a volitional and causal activity which has the power 
of forming and executing purposes. And that cause is 
intelligent, mental, volitional. And the will-causation 
controls and directs the mechanical causation. Thus all 
order implies and expresses purposiveness. 

And even the mechanical laws themselves — are they 
independent, self-sufficient, self-acting machines whose 
whole ground and explanation is to be found in them- 
selves ? Or do they also give evidences of purpose, and 
another ulterior power behind them? Is it not a legit- 
imate question to ask, whence come these mechanical 
laws? What is logic and logical necessity but the laws 
of thought, the way in which the mind thinks? Is the 
nature of the mind due to the mind itself — to its internal 
purposiveness; or is it due to an external purposiveness 
of which the minds of men form but one of the more 
important means — the purposiveness of nature, perhaps 
— to whom the mechanical laws and the conditions un- 
der which they act are also means? Do not law and 
order in the universe point to a purpose to be realized 
by these means, and this purposiveness, to a conscious- 
ness as its ground? 

Schelling says: " The peculiarity of nature rests on 
the fact that, with all its mechanism, it is yet full of 
purpose." Indeed, our very use of the term " Mechan- 
ism " with reference to the laws of nature indicates that 
we have in our minds the machines which men make 
with purpose, and which are means by which we exe- 
cute our purposes. 

" The conception of mechanism cannot be held, even 

47 



THE CONCEPT PURPOSE 

its most meagre and outline form of statement, without 
implying the conception of final purpose. And the 
most elaborate and comprehensive form of the mechan- 
ical theory — the modern scientific and all-inclusive 
theory of evolution — does not at all dispense with, but 
rather enhances and applies in multiform ways, the 
ideas of teleology." " Mechanism means nothing less 
than this: a system of individual existences which act 
and react upon one another, according to forms and in 
obedience to laws that are necessary to the attainment 
of ideal ends. No such conception as a ' mechanism of 
nature ' or a ' structure of the world ' is tenable without 
the implicate of purposiveness. A critical metaphysics 
has therefore no need to effect a union, or apologetically 
to harmonize a seeming conflict between these two prin- 
ciples. The two are in union, essentially one and the 
same, both as noetical and as ontological principles. 
. . . To talk of conflict here is f oolishness ; to at- 
tempt reconciliation there is no need." 1 

1 Ladd : A Theory 01 Reality. 



48 



CHAPTER VII 

THE PURPOSE OF ORGANIC NATURE 

In our former consideration of the beasts, we noticed 
only one set of phenomena, from which we concluded 
their intelligence and their internal purposiveness. It 
is now necessary to consider them as related to the rest 
of the universe, as parts of the organum and as reveal- 
ing external purposiveness. The classifications of 
zoology are based not on the use of parts, but on the 
design, the purpose, of the beast. It is a division into 
types. The instincts of animals are not the result of 
imitation and experience. They appear not to be 
planned by the beast. They do not indicate conscious- 
ness of purposes. While modified by experience, they 
do not depend on it. The actions of the newly matured 
bee in seeking honey and returning to the hive ; the adap- 
tation of a moth to its new life, so unlike its life as a 
caterpillar, and her provision for food for the children 
she has never seen; the harvesting and storing of nuts 
by an old squirrel who had been born and raised in cap- 
tivity and who had never experienced a winter out of 
doors until escape from confinement, all show these in- 
nate capacities which are so necessary to the preserva- 
tion of the species. If these plans that are formed and 
purposes that are executed cannot be referred to the 
conscious activity of the beast, they must be referred 
to some other consciousness superior to the conditions 
and environments in which they are placed. They de- 

49 



THE CONCEPT PURPOSE 

pend on their instincts of preservation, perpetuation, 
and their cooperative instincts (beavers, ants, bees) for 
the accomplishment of their functions. In all instincts 
there is an adaptation of the beast to the satisfaction of 
its wants. It fulfils purposes which are imposed upon 
it from outside. It is conditioned. The beast is carry- 
ing out plans and fulfilling its functions in the world, 
and it must continue in that course. It cannot tran- 
scend its limits. Both upon insentient and sentient life 
there is imposed the mark of a purpose which is not of 
their own making, but which they are constrained to 
carry out. And even so with man, while he can use 
the lower laws and profit by mechanical causation, can 
chain the powers of water, steam and electricity and 
adapt them to his own designs and make them execute 
his own purposes, while — greatest of all — he can plan 
while many other intelligent and purposeful men come 
under his plan and often blindly execute his purposes, 
being thereby conditioned by his thought, yet he, too, 
is conditioned. He is within limits. There is a limit 
to his power of conception and volition, and a still closer 
limit to his ability to execute his purposes. He is not 
alone compelled to work in accordance with mechanical 
causation, and not against it; he is also conditioned by 
the purpose which is imposed upon the universe and 
upon him as its noblest representative, from a foreign 
source, and he must fulfil his function, his part, in 
bringing to a realization in fact, the purpose which is 
everywhere evident. Indeed, unless the universe were 
rationally, purposively, consciously, even " Divinely 
constituted, it could not be reasoned about." * 

" But though there are some things which convince 

1 Frazer. 
50 



THE PURPOSE OF ORGANIC NATURE 

us human agents are concerned in producing them, yet 
it is evident to every one that these things which are 
called the works of nature are not produced by or de- 
pendent on the wills of men." x 

The external world, as given to us in experience, is 
an ordered, necessarily connected series. We find the 
external world a purposive order, and consequently de- 
termine it to be consciously constituted. 

" It is because there is an industry of nature, a ge- 
ometry, and aesthetic of nature, that man is capable of 
industry, of geometry and aesthetic. Nature is all that 
we are, and all that we are we hold from nature. The 
creative genius which the artist feels in himself is to 
him the revelation and the symbol of the creative genius 
of nature." 2 

This leads us to the position that there is, above the 
physical laws of the world, a higher law, a mental caus- 
ality, a conscious purpose, a spiritual and Divine guid- 
ance. The laws of nature, as being of a lower order, 
the lower of a pair of parallel horizontal lines, are 
altered, changed, affected, given validity and purposive- 
ness by a higher law, which dominates it and overrules it, 
usually unnoticed, but sometimes in a manner unusual, 
as are those events which, not being easily explained, we 
call miraculous, or wonderful, or strange. 

We see here a causal activity working from the 

upper line upon the lower, 

a 

I 
b 

(and yet we cannot consider this more than a very super- 
ficial illustration) . 

Berkeley, Principles, § 146. 'Janet: Final Causes. 

51 



THE CONCEPT PURPOSE 

If the lower line indicates the series of events in 
the world, and the upper the conscious, volitional, 
thinking intelligence, to which we have referred the 
purposiveness that we have observed in the lower line, 
as to a cause or ground, we find this true in one sense. 

Yet the illustration shows two lines which are every- 
where equally distant, although infinitely prolonged. 
This is when our view is restricted to a very limited por- 
tion of the lines. 

But purpose in the universe is not only an exterior 
purposiveness, due to a consciousness independent of 
the world and yet acting upon it, but also to an internal 
purposiveness due to a " Weltgheist," or to an immanent 
Consciousness. Let us use our illustration of the par- 
allel lines again. If we view them from a distance, 
they seem to approach so closely together that they ap- 
pear identical. ( Or they may be considered as meeting 
in infinity, or as crossing, if we introduce other consid- 
erations not yet entertained, like a fourth dimension, for 
instance. ) The first use of the lines illustrates the tran- 
scendence, the second the immanence of God. But here 
there is intended no contradiction. In distinction from 
the German philosophers, we do not consider transcend- 
ence and immanence as mutually exclusive. As a 
matter of fact, there is no instance in the history of 
philosophy where one excludes the other. Descartes' 
" divinus concursus " and Leibnitz' " continued cre- 
ation " both imply immanence. Spinoza's " Natura Nat- 
urans " and Hegel's " Idea and Nature " imply tran- 
scendence. All transcendence shows a relation be- 
tween God and the world, and hence immanence, else 
the separation between God and the world, being com- 

52 



THE PURPOSE OF ORGANIC NATURE 

plete, would prevent the knowledge of either by the 
other. And all immanence shows a distinction, a du- 
ality, between God and the world, and hence transcend- 
ence, else the identity would result in a fixity, an 
unchangeableness, where there could be no cause and 
effect, no relative and absolute. 

We may illustrate the union of transcendence and 
immanence by reference to the relation existing between 
a man's mind and his body. Our mind is not our body. 
To us, body, nerves, brain, are all objective. And 
again we can in self -consciousness objectify ourselves 
still more; ourselves as subjects are not ourselves as 
objects. The immaterial mind transcends the body. 

Again, the mind is immanent in the body, because 
it is through the brain and nervous system that it acts 
and manifests itself. It is the life of the body, and 
displays itself in expression of face and in character, 
and pervades all the work which it accomplishes. 

These two relations are logically distinct, but are 
actually one. The dead body differs from the living 
because the mind is not active in it. And we have no 
immediate and direct knowledge of a mind apart from 
a body, although it transcends the body in its self-con- 
scious, self -identical and self-determined characteristics. 

The union of the two parallel lines of our former 
illustration, 



is to be discovered and found in the concrete expressions 
in reality of the concept purpose which, like the fourth 

53 



THE CONCEPT PURPOSE 

dimension, links the minds and the works of men in a 
reciprocal relation, and in the same manner unites God 
and the world. The supreme cause is at once apart from 
and within nature. The purposes of God are worked 
out both upon nature by external purposiveness and 
within nature by internal purposiveness, and it is fre- 
quently impossible to determine to which class the evi- 
dences of a purpose belong. 

And besides, all the secondary purposes are being 
realized in the world; in this conception of the parallel 
lines, all are linked and united into one great, purposive 
whole. Nature is the working out and the evidence of a 
purpose of God of which it is the gradually developing 
realization. 

"An ' ultimate ' purpose of the world's being and 
course, as such, may well seem something unattainable 
and even inconceivable. The end to be attained can- 
not be regarded as the complete cessation of the process 
of its own attainment. The ultimate purpose of Na- 
ture cannot be a statical condition. The very idea of 
teleology is an incitement to strive on and live on; the 
idea itself perishes in its own completed realization. To 
be sure, individual men get tired and come to consider 
Nirvana as the ultimate ideal; or they get pessimistic 
and regard the condition when the world shall be a 
burned-out coal as something devoutly to be wished. 
But the world itself is not tired ; and the strictly ' ulti- 
mate ' purpose is always beyond where man's hope and 
faith — not to say man's knowledge — can go. . . . 
This world is, fundamentally considered, known to 
man as a Will guided by immanent ideas; and among 
these guiding ideas are the ideal ends, already actually 

54 



THE PURPOSE OF ORGANIC NATURE 

secured and to be secured by the action of this 
WE" x 

And thus man forms the conception of the Imma- 
nent God. 

And so, as the transcendent God and the immanent 
God are one, the external purpose and the internal pur- 
pose of the world are united into One Purpose, which 
is the manifestation of the Will of God, expressing and 
realizing His Ideas, and the " ultimate purpose " of the 
universe is present before the Consciousness of God. 

1 Ladd : A Theory of Reality. 



55 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



Berkeley : Dialogues ; Principles of Human Knowledge ; Theory of 
Vision. 

Bowne : Theory of Thought and Knowledge. 

Butler : Analogy. 

Descartes : Discourse on Method ; Meditations ; Principles of Philoso- 
phy- 

Dewey : Psychology. 

Fichte : Wissenschaftslehre. 

Haeckel : The Riddle of the Universe. 

Hartmann : Philosophic des Unbewussten. 

Hegel : Logic. 

Hume : Treatise of Human Nature ; Enquiry Concerning Human 
Understanding. 

Illingworth : Personality ; Immanence. 

James : Psychology. (Two volumes, and briefer course.) 

Kant : Prolegomena ; Critique of Pure Reason ; Critique of Practical 
Reason ; Critique of Judgment. 

Ladd : Philosophy of Mind ; Outlines of Descriptive Psychology ; A 
Theory of Reality. 

Lange : History of Materialism. 

Locke : Essay Concerning Human Understanding. 

Milne-Edwards : Zoologie. 

Munsterberg : Grundziige der Psychologic 

Orr : God and the World. 

Paulsen : Introduction to Philosophy. 

Pierson : Grammar of Science. 

Reaumer : Hist, des Insectes. 

Ribot : Diseases of the Will. 

Royce : Spirit of Modern Philosophy ; The World and the Individual. 

56 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Schopenhauer : Fourfold Root ; Will in Nature ; The World as Will 

and Idea. 
Spinoza : Theo.-Pol. Treatise ; Political Treatise ; Improvement of 

the Understanding ; Ethics. 
Stout : Manual of Psychology. 
Ward : Materialism and Agnosticism. 
Woodbridge : The Problem of Metaphysics. (Philosophical Review* 

vol. xii., No. 4>, July, 1903.) 



57 



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